Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method for locating a rail vehicle with a rail vehicle position determination device on a route by means of reading the positions of reference marks along the route passed by the rail vehicle and by evaluating additional distance data.
In a known method of this type (W. Fenner, P. Neumann, J. Trinckauf “Bahnsicherungstechnik” [“Railway Safety Technology”], 2003, Page 83) balises are used as reference marks, as well as odometers on-board the rail vehicles with which additional distance data can be acquired. The balises serve here to calibrate the odometer.
Brief Summary of the Invention
The object underlying the invention is to further develop the known method, so that with little effort a rail vehicle can be located with a comparatively high level of accuracy.
With a method as specified above according to the invention, to achieve this object in the case of a route with at least one track section with an axle counter evaluator that is bordered by axle counter sensor units, information on the number of axles is transferred from the axle counter evaluator to the rail vehicle position determination device; in the rail vehicle position determination device, using existing track topology data the position of an axle of the rail vehicle that corresponds to the information on the number of axles is determined and this position is used as a further reference mark.
A major advantage of the method according to the invention is that the existing axle counter evaluators on the track sections with axle counter sensor units are assigned an additional function, in that they are used in conjunction with the rail vehicle position determination devices to form further reference marks in addition to the usual reference marks formed by the balises. Location uncertainty can then be reduced in particular where the distance between the reference marks/balises is relatively large and track sections with axle counter sensor units exist anyway and according to the invention are used to form further reference marks.
In the method according to the invention, the information on the number of axles can be transferred in different ways to the rail vehicle position determination device. It is advantageous if the information on the number of axles is transferred from the axle counter evaluator directly to the rail vehicle position determination device, as in this case the transmission route is short and the transmission time is also therefore short. The determination of the position of the axle of the rail vehicle that corresponds to the information on the number of axles can therefore take place easily and very precisely. If in this case the transfer takes place advantageously via a radio link, then any additional effort is comparatively low, as an ordinarily already existing reception device of the rail vehicle position determination device can also be used for this.
In this respect an embodiment of the method according to the invention is more advantageous in which the information on the number of axles is transferred from the axle counter evaluator via a train protection unit to the rail vehicle position determination device. Here it is advantageous if the information on the number of axles is transferred from the axle counter evaluator via a communications link to the train protection unit and from this via a message link to the rail vehicle position determination device. Here, existing information transfer methods can be utilized, for example CBTC solutions for metro systems.
In this embodiment of the method according to the invention, in order to avoid inaccuracies in determining the position of the axle of the rail vehicle that corresponds to the information on the number of axles, a time synchronization is performed advantageously between the axle counter evaluator and the rail vehicle position determination device, which can take place for example by means of time stamps.
In order to be able to determine the position of the axle that corresponds to the information on the number of axles and thereby the location of the rail vehicle particularly reliably and also precisely, it is deemed advantageous in the case of a further axle counter evaluator assigned to a subsequent track section to transfer further information on the number of axles from this further axle counter evaluator to the rail vehicle position determination device and to use the further information on the number of axles as redundant information on the number of axles in determining the position of the axle in the rail vehicle position determination device.